This week’s cartoon: “Incorporate the vote!”

Still absorbing the amazingness of Election Night as I type this. I keep thinking of the contrast with 2004, when Bush and Cheney swiftboated their way to a second term, and how none of this seemed possible then. But as we celebrate, let’s not forget the grave threat posed by big money in politics. Yes, we beat the Koch Brothers and Adelson and corporate dark money this time. But really, this race should not have been even remotely close. Four years after Republicans and Wall Street left the country in ruins, we nearly elected a private equity shark who dismissed half the country as leeches. That’s screwed up. Money talked, and it confused a lot of people. Fortunately, the messenger was often Donald Trump, but he won’t always be around.

I saved a big stack of the glossy flyers that were clogging my mailbox. I plan to put them in a manila envelope and mail them to some of the Supreme Court justices who voted for Citizens United, and “Thank” them for making me the target of unlimited amounts of advertising.

And, if money is free speech, why do cops arrest drivers who try to hand the cop a $100 bill to get out of a ticket? Couldn’t the driver just argue that he’s expressing free speech?

http://www.slowpokecomics.com Jen Sorensen

I actually drew that cartoon once, about a driver expressing free speech by paying off a cop. It was over ten years ago, so it’s not on my site.

Labann

Liz Warren had that powder blue blazer on as she said, “You [the voters] made this happen,” and set a half dozen election firsts including biggest boodle collected from small sources and spent on a senate seat, and first woman elected to Senate from MA. At least she is from MA. Corporate candidates relocate to states they think are pushovers, 21st Century carpetbagging.

Roger Bloyce

The Scalia quote captures his Citizen’s United concurrence superbly. It meandered from the case at point to assert, incomprehensibly, that the founding fathers intended corporations to be regarded as people. Thus the decision turned the American democracy into an anonymous plutocracy virtually overnight.

http://www.holmeswoodwork.com Elmore

My elation over the national election results is tempered by my state’s election of GOP supermajorities in both houses of its legislature. State legislatures and judiciaries are where the Koch Brothers and friends are making the most progress in buying our entire government.

Zebra

It is really funny and sad that you can substitute the word “Union” in this comic and get the real horror of the joke. But then, it wouldn’t be funny anymore. It would be reality.

John Q

Can’t let Zebra’s comment ride. If the Supreme Court had ruled that unions are people, yes, that certainly would have been funny and sad. But rather than promoting the power and wealth of our anonymous plutocracy, unions exist to support the downtrodden, not oppress them further. While like all social institutions they can be and often are corrupt, substituting the word “union” in the fourth panel above, if that’s what you meant, is neither funny nor sad and has nothing to do with reality.

Zebra

You don’t think that the unions are voting? Or in fact vote for their members? Of course they do. They exert far more influence on our elected officials than most care to admit. To suggest that the unions are for the little man is absurd. Tell that to a man who owns a car has a stellar driving record and wants to start a taxi business to feed his family in New York. Sorry little man no can do. We can’t allow outsiders to come in and take our business. The union is a plutocracy as well. He wealthy in the union are getting wealthier and crush an opposition.
There was a time when a union was needed. What we need now is for the government to step aside and let GM go bankrupt again without the phony fluffer job by the rest of the nation. They are bankrupt because of the union.
And yes by golly they vote. Forced monies from dues to politicians the worker does not support.